SUBIECT: Deces la clinica cu celule stem X-cell, Germania

M-am uitat la articolul din Telegraph, care l-au tradus cei de la Ziare.com si pe care Daniel l-a pus pe site aici si m-am gandit ca ar merita tradus videoul de pe acea pagina.

Nu am facut embed in video la traducere, trebuie apasat pe "Interactive Transcript", sau s-ar putea sa apara la CC. S-ar putea sa trebuiasca sa-l urmariti pe youtube, ca sa puteti baga traducerea.Sa vedem daca nu-l vor sterge cei de la Youtube.



Mai este un articol interesant, tot de acelasi jurnalist care a filmat acest interviu, Alasdair Palmer aici: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8083001/I-travelled-in-hope-to-stem-cell-clinic.html

Il bag si aici, just in case:

I travelled in hope to stem cell clinic

The XCell-Centre holds out hope of a treatment for incurable diseases. Alasdair Palmer, who has MS, travelled to Düsseldorf for a consultation.

Hope is important to everyone, but it is particularly precious to those who suffer from an incurable disease. I am one of that group. I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis nearly 20 years ago.

I now have to use a wheelchair, and the future is not particularly rosy. So whenever I hear that there has been a new scientific development which could turn out to be a cure, or which could at least halt the progression of the disease, I start to hope.

I know that, on every occasion in the past, the news of a cure has turned out to be false: the claims that the new treatment can reverse MS have, on closer inspection, all turned out to be bogus.

But I can't stop myself from hoping that this time it's different: this time the elixir really has been found.

Like everyone else with a neurological disease, my hopes have been, and are, raised by stem cell research.

In theory, there is every chance that eventually, stem cells – the cells which have the potential to convert themselves into any kind of specialist cell in the body, from brain and nerve cells to the cells that make up your skin or your liver – might eventually provide an effective treatment for MS.

But progress towards that goal is in practice proving to be agonisingly slow, not least because everything that has the potential to do good can also do harm.

It requires a great deal of research to show that a therapy isn't going to be damaging. The history of medicine is littered with treatments that seemed to be miracle cures, but turned out to be harmful.

Even techniques such as heart transplants, which are now routinely practised and save thousands of lives around the world every year, started by killing all the patients who had them.

None the less, when I was asked by the editor of The Sunday Telegraph to investigate a medical centre in Düsseldorf that offers stem cell treatment to those who can afford to pay for it, I was immediately intrigued.

I'm aware that a British doctor has been struck off the medical register in this country for offering such treatments. I've also written sceptical articles about the claims made by doctors who say they can provide stem cell "cures" for MS.

I've also read non-technical summaries of the scientific papers published in medical journals which point to the difficulties with existing stem cell techniques, and to the fact that there is as yet no trial which has provided solid evidence of their benefits.

And yet – there is always the possibility that a brilliant medical researcher has come up with a very effective technique which, while it has not yet been proved to be effective, actually is.

So in spite of my well-rehearsed scepticism, the XCell-Centre in Düsseldorf got my hopes up. A quick glance at its website demonstrates that its doctors are very confident that their stem cell treatment is effective in treating MS and other neurological diseases.

My hope focused on a single thought: it is surely not impossible that they have found something that works. And if it is not impossible – mightn't it be worth trying?

I booked myself a consultation with Professor Doctor Haberland. I was immediately informed that it would cost 300 euros, and that I would have to pay before the consultation.

The X-Cell Centre is housed in a large hospital building overlooking the Rhine. As I waited for my appointment, it was clear that everyone else who was waiting for a consultation suffered from the same hope that I did.

Some of them were considerably more desperate for a cure than I am. One woman with advanced Parkinson's Disease – she had travelled all the way from the United States – told me quite simply that she knew the treatment wasn't scientifically proven.

She even realised that there was a significant chance it wouldn't work. "But what is my alternative?", she asked plaintively. "For me, there is none, except waiting until I degenerate to the point where I die, or want to die."

Our conversation was interrupted because I was called in to my meeting with Professor Haberland.

He is a genial man with an air of intense professional competence: he is a trained neurosurgeon who has spent most of his career working on injuries to the spinal cord. He was friendly and patient.

He said that his treatment consisted of taking stem cells from the patient's bone marrow, separating them, and then injecting them.

"We have some amazing results with this treatment," he told me.

He insisted that the best results came from combining this approach with an operation developed by an Italian doctor named Zamboni, which involved, Prof Haberland said, widening veins in the patient's neck.

Zamboni had, Prof Haberland claimed, established that many neurological conditions were connected to a narrowing of these veins.

When the operation to widen them was used in conjunction with the injection of stem cells, "you have a win-win situation … 80 per cent of our patients report improvements".

He pointed to a Dutch patient who had been in a wheelchair prior to the operation, but after it, had been able to walk.

So if I had the treatment, would I be able to walk? "You would have a chance", Prof Haberland replied. "The response is very different from patient to patient. But you would have a chance." And it would only cost about 19,500 euros.

Against my better judgement, I felt my hopes rising. But there were also some questions. How did Prof Haberland know how successful the treatment was? What was the follow up? "We ask patients to fill in a questionnaire three months after the operation, and we see them here and test them after six months", he said.

There is, however, considerable doubt whether a patient questionnaire has any value, since it is not an objective measure.

There is still more doubt as to how many patients actually bother to travel all the way to Düsseldorf for an assessment by the centre six months after the operation.

Moreover, Prof Haberland said he had only been doing the double operation – the combination of stem cells and widening the veins in the patient's neck – for six months.

How, I wondered, could there be any reliable data from such a short period? Would Prof Haberland be publishing his results? No, he said: he had no plans to. "We need more cases and then we need to make a double blind study in multi centres. This is a long way off."

But if Prof Haberland hasn't enough patients for a proper trial – how can he be sure even that his operation isn't harmful, let alone that it actually benefits patients?

He was unequivocal that because he uses stem cells from the patient's own body, injecting those cells can't hurt the patient.

It certainly sounds plausible. But no one can know until there has been a large-scale study.

Professor Neil Scolding of Bristol University followed six patients with MS after they had been injected with stem cells taken from their bone marrow for over a year.

Careful monitoring showed that none of the patients were harmed. But the evidence of benefit was less certain: rather than any improvement, it suggested that the patients' condition had stabilised instead of deteriorating further.

It became increasingly obvious in the course of my discussion with Prof Haberland that he does not have any clear, objective and verifiable evidence that his treatment provides the sort of benefits that he claims for it.

It is not even clear that he and the hospital have followed up their patients at all. I asked for any records showing objective evidence of how patients improved after the operation. None have been provided.

That was not enough to extinguish my hopes altogether, however, for Prof Haberland is very persuasive.

He is a subtle salesman. He held out the possibility that I would experience enormous benefits from his operation – but he did not promise them outright. That leaves just enough room for hope to do its work of eroding doubt.

I recorded my interview with Prof Haberland, and showed a transcript to Prof Scolding, an internationally-recognised neurologist and expert on stem cell treatments for MS.

Prof Scolding noted that Prof Haberland's claims about what bone marrow stem cells can do are not, in principle, wrong – but he also pointed out that that is quite different from showing that his treatment can or does make the symptoms of anyone with MS improve.

Prof Scolding was more forthright in his criticism of Prof Haberland's claims for the "vein clearing" operation developed by Zamboni.

"There are potentially serious consequences for stenting for this so-called condition – one patient has died in the US," Prof Scolding stated.

"There is emerging published evidence that there is no link between venous drainage in the neck and MS.

"Applying this 'treatment' to patients with Parkinson's and other neurological conditions ... is extremely eccentric."

He added: "If patients had genuinely responded to [Prof Haberland's] evidence-free combination of stem cell therapy and vein clearing treatment, it would be scandalous for him not to have published his results.

"To my mind, if they are persuading often-desperate patients to pay large sums of money for treatments that have no sustainable evidence to support them, it is cynically exploitative and a disgrace to the practice of medicine."

That, to me, sums it up perfectly. It extinguished whatever hope Prof Haberland had kindled in me.

***

Reporterul de la Telegraph, Alasdair Palmer, are scleroza multipla si a platit 300 de euro pentru a face aceasta consultatie, pe care a filmat-o cu camera ascunsa.

Dr. Haberland ii spune despre o dubla operatie o procedura pe care a inceput-o in urma cu 6 luni. E vorba de o largire a venelor din gat, si un implant cu celule stem din maduva osoasa.

Ce parere aveti despre acest interviu?

Dionnis a scris:La mine se vede traducerea daca apas pe ^CC ... este ok, mersi Dio

Cat despre consultatie, acum 3 ani era gratuita si nu se percepeau acei 300 euro de care am mai vorbit in Promotori ai implantului stem-cells

Am ajuns la concluzia ca se face mult tam-tam cu promovarea XCell si a implantului autolog cu celule stem, mult fum pentru majoritatea celor care le-au fost pacienti. Cred ca pe acesti intermediari care promoveaza consultatiile si sunt desemnate persoane de contact pe website-ul lor, ii pregatesc dupa un material audio-video gen CD, toti au aceasi tactica oratorie si mesajul lor este: "Ai o sansa, dar rezultatele difera foarte mult de la pacient la pacient; nu putem promite inainte. Prima data conteaza cum raspunde organismul, iar apoi trebuie sa vedem felul si calitatea imbunatatirilor. Asta vom vedea la urma, dar exista o mare sansa"

Nu conteaza ce diagnostic ai... pentru toate afectiunile raspunsul este asemanator. Cosmin poate ne spune discutia avuta de el cu Dna. Olga, ce promisiuni se fac pentru 300 euro si cand intrebi de cazuri asemanatoare, o dau "la intors".

O sa revin cu certitudine la acesta discutie, las locul pentru "reply" si celorlalti utilizatori ai forumului, nu de alta, insa este o discutie foarte serioasa si de luat in seama de toti viitorii potentiali clienti ai nemtilor

Am refacut videoul de mai sus, si am facut emmbed la subtitrare in video, deoarece nu functiona foarte bine cu CC. Cand era propozitia mai lunga, nu aparea finalu.



Cei de X-Cell au dat un raspuns oficialpe 26 Octombrie, privind evenimentele cu decesele si scandalu din presa. Bag si aici:

For Our Patients - Official Response to Recent Events

October 26, 2010

Dear prospective patients,

It is our mission to provide you with the most promising autologous stem cell treatments in a safe, ethical and professional manner. We therefore believe that it is our duty to inform you publicly about recent events that have been the target of biased, erroneous and even undercover reporting methods in the news media in order to defame us.

Over the past few months, two young children with most severe forms of cerebral palsy suffered serious complications during their neuro-endoscopy procedures; one resulting in a very unfortunate death which everyone at the XCell-Center deeply regrets. However, one must realize that all medical procedures are associated with limitations and risks; especially in situations with severely disabled patients.

Brain surgery is a serious medical intervention with much higher risks than less invasive procedures. The more invasive, the higher the risk, and in many cases, the higher the potential benefit. This balance must be judged in each individual patient, especially in the cases of children, by the treating doctor in close collaboration with their parents. Unfortunately, one of our neurosurgeons has, in our opinion, failed to correctly assess the risk-benefit-ratio in a few patients. Consequently, after the first complication, the surgeon was issued a warning. After the second complication, the employment contract of this particular neurosurgeon was terminated. These complications occurred due to the surgery itself. Consequently, these events are unrelated to the stem cells. The events were reported to the health authorities by XCell-Center.

When severe medical complications occur, it is a routine procedure to investigate. The public prosecutor, Christoph Kumpa confirmed in a statement that, "The inquiry is directed towards this specific doctor and her actions and not XCell-Center."

So far, more than 100 brain surgeries have been performed at the XCell-Center with about 2 percent complication rate. This complication rate is on the very low side by international comparison. Overall, XCell-Center surgeons do an excellent job. However, whenever 100 brain surgeries are performed within the span of 12 months there will be some level of complications. Because of this potential risk, all neurosurgical patients receive personal counseling from the operating neurosurgeon during which time they are informed of possible complications. After that, they all sign a comprehensive, written informed consent document.

Due to the above clarified complications, brain surgeries as well as lumbar punctures and other spinal procedures were temporarily put on hold. However, this moratorium for lumbar punctures and spinal procedures was lifted within a week. Safety reports of 1500 lumbar punctures and at least 400 in children exist. To date, no patient has reported a serious complication. Apart from the typical symptoms of lumbar puncture such as headache, vomiting, backache which are transient albeit intense, there are no other adverse reactions. So far the facts clearly demonstrate that lumbar puncture is a very safe method of application. Many patients, including children, have considerably improved after receiving this treatment. Every week the XCell-Center receives emails from parents expressing their thanks and happiness with the results. Video and written documentation of many patients' improvements are published on the XCell-Center web site and Facebook page. There are many others catalogued in our patient files.

With regards to the sensationalized stories currently published in the news media, journalists crave miracles or scandal because anything in between simply doesn't sell. Unfortunately, because the XCell-Center isn't offering miracles, we are wrongly accused of perpetuating scandal while the real story, that many patients experience numerous levels of improvement after treatment, remains largely untold.

Several academic institutions suggest that XCell-Center harms stem cell research, however they consistently fail to point out that the XCell-Center is the only stem cell institute producing cell products under governmental GMP approval and that it is authorized by the competent governmental authorities to collect, process and release stem cell products while at the same time, administering such stem cell products in a controlled setting. This includes a clear indication setting, clearly defined inclusion and exclusion criteria, and status measurements of the patient via radiological scans, laboratory testing and cognitive and physical determinations as well as video documentation for each individual patient. Moreover, the Xcell-Center is actually conducting a preclinical and clinical research program at the level that is required by the EMA (European Medicines Agency) and the US FDA. Worldwide, the first placebo controlled clinical study in patients with spinal cord injury has commenced. We intend to file in the near future for obtaining marketing authorization for several neurological indications and other life threatening conditions. After approval, the stem cell treatment will be made commonly available throughout the EU and US.

Finally, we thank you all for your continued support and we will keep you apprised of any new developments as they occur.

Sincerely,

Dr. Cornelis H. Kleinbloesem

CEO XCell-Center

***

Pe scurt, spun ca decesele se datoreaza, procedurii chirurgicale si nu "celulelor stem" si dau toata vina pe doctorul care a efectuat procedura. Doctorita respectiva a fost dat afara si e investigata.

Mai spun ca timp de o saptamana le-a fost interzis sa continue, dar in momentul de fata, doar procedurile pe creier mai sunt oprite. Continua cu punctiile lombare, si procedurile spinale.

De asemenea vorbesc pe scurt, ca s-a filmat cu camera asunsa, si spun ca jurnalistii doar cauta senzationalu.

Foarte pe scurt cam asta ar fi.

Fiecare crede ce vrea.

***

Ca o nota, v-as intreba ce parere aveti despre "Punctiile lombare"? Nemtii in articolul de mai sus, lauda faptul ..ca nu au existat complicatii in cazul punctiilor lombare si sunt foarte sigure. Dupa ei, celule stem injectate prin punctie lombara, migreaza la locul leziunii si rezolva problema.

Vroiam sa zic, ca Wise era foarte sceptic privind aceste proceduri -punctiile lombare, sau injectiile "intrathecally" cum zicea el. Nu exista complicatii, dar nici nu vedea posibila migrarea celulelor la locul leziunii.

Cred ca este diferenta de pret, intre "punctia lombara" si "interventia chirurgicala", majoritatea optand pentru prima. Daniel, cred ca tu stii mai bine.

Dionnis a scris:Fiecare isi promoveaza procedura si spun ca este "sigura".

Ce imi pare ciudat, este faptul ca la EmCell Dr. Alexander Smikodub face transplantul prin perfuzii, iar restul (exceptandu-l pe Lima procedeaza in mod asemanator in cazul celulelor stem adulte (recoltate din maduva osoasa)... implant intravertebral L4-L5 pentru multe afectiuni, nu doar TVM.

La cobai (soareci, pisici) au rezultate... coloana lor masoara 4-5 (25) cm, pe cand la oameni e greu de precizat, ca la o leziune cervicala de exemplu, sa migreze respectivele celule in locul lezat si sa regenereze tesutul sau sa preia rolul celor distruse.

Este cunoscut faptul ca neuronii din SNC care au suferit leziuni nu se pot regenera, dar inca nu exista o cauza precisa care sa explice acest lucru... de aceea se merge pe experimente si cercetari (culmea, platite de pacient) in gasirea unor noi metode/cai de vindecare a celor afectati de traume sau alte boli.

Rolul celulelor gliale (postul #17380) este de refacere/reparare dupa leziune, insa se pare ca acestea, deocamdata, creaza un mediu inhibitor pentru noile celule stem introduse prin punctie lombara in organism
Diferenta semnificativa... de la 7 500 euro prima procedura, la 25 500 euro in cazul operatiilor. PLUS CA NU SE OFERA RECUPERARE, MASA SI CAZARE in Germania, comparativ cu alte centre similare din lume.

Eu, George, Cetin si multi alti forumisti psc am facut aceste interventi si... rezultate aici Recuperare nesemnificativa fata de asteptari. Ata' este... turism medical

Salutare membri si cititori
pentru bani se fac multe compromisuri , dar cand sunt in joc multi bani compromisurile sunt inimaginabile !!!
Atata timp cat esti un posibil client credul (este foarte important), toata lumea este amabila. Daca incepi sa pui intrebari , sa te interesezi , sa aduni informatii si eventual sa le folosesti impotriva lor , devii un posibil dusman si te inlatura.
Asa se intampla si cazul clinicii X-cell din Germania . Ei incearca sa para creduli , am vazut ca au facut situl si in limba romana , pentru ca au descoperit in Romania o piata buna. Ei stiu ca romanii sunt creduli cand vine vorba de Germania si nu fac decat sa profite. Poate ca au avut si cazuri cu rezultate bune , dar sunt sigur ca nu stiu nici ei de ce si in ce procent?!?!? ........... sunt doar in stadiul de experiment. Nu ar fi problema experimentul, dar cand folosesti pacienti , aflati la disperare si mai ceri multi bani......asta nu e bine !!!
Daca intentionati sa faceti un tratament , va rog sa va interesati si sa puneti mai multe intrebari !
Multa bafta si sanatate